


The Starving Time

by Sintari (OriginalSintari)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Past Underage, Pining, Sam POV, Season/Series 12, casefic, first time in a long time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 02:01:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18216689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalSintari/pseuds/Sintari
Summary: When a man is told he can’t do something, he suddenly can think of nothing else. Sam and Dean have to solve a case all the while cursed to disintegrate if they touch one another.





	The Starving Time

**Author's Note:**

> I took a few liberties with canon. Like, in addition to the incest thing.
> 
> ETA: A big thank you to the lovely [Fledhyris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fledhyris) on the belated beta on this previously un-betaed piece. SPN people are the best people.

_If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off. – Matthew 5:30_

“If the curse is what I think it is,” Rowena’s voice sounds distant through the speakerphone, “Then I wouldn’t test it.”

Sam meets Dean’s eyes over the phone. The witch they tracked down outside Kansas City had escaped in a fricking DeLorean. But not before chanting a long string of Latin that ended in what sounded like the word _infausti_ , and then shouting “The next time you touch will be your doooooooom” in a way that would have been a lot scarier if she hadn’t then had to wrestle against gravity to pull the car door down – weird, by the way – before speeding off.

The curse prickled like pins and needles when it hit, but the stunning effect wore off quickly enough for Dean to ask, “Was that the first time we ever saw a DeLorean in person?”

“I think we’d remember that, so yeah,” Sam had said. And, as they gathered their weapons, “So, we should probably not touch each other until we figure out what all that’s about.”

Dean immediately reaches to boop Sam’s nose. A static shock erupts between them as his finger gets close.

“What did I just say?” Sam sighs.

Now they’re sitting on opposite sides of the table in the bunker library, and where Sam would normally kick his legs out under the table, he now folds them carefully under his chair. Better safe than sorry.

“What I don’t get is what she thought us not being able to touch each other would accomplish though?” Sam asks Rowena.

“Yeah, Winchesters are not exactly known for the touchy-feely stuff,” Dean puts in.

They hear Rowena laugh. “Oh, I don’t know, dears. Winchesters also aren’t known for dealing well with shall we say, constraints.”

Sam thinks that if Dean rolls his eyes any farther, he’ll fall backward out of his chair. “Yeah, yeah. So, what does this curse have in store for us if our hands touch meaningfully while we’re both reaching for the last beer?”

Sam swallows. He’s grateful when the phone vibrates at that moment.

“A 400-year-old witch can learn to FaceTime but Bobby never could?” Dean grumbles as Sam hits the button to accept and Rowena’s face fills the screen. She comes into full view as she apparently places her phone on a tripod and then, with a pouted “oh,” smooths an unblended edge of her eyeshadow with one finger, using the phone as a mirror.

“Rowena.” Sam rubs at his temples. 

She’s standing in what looks like a science lab. Two mice roam a glass cage in front of her.

“Right, boys. I’m so very glad you asked.”

She picks the mice up by the tails, brandishing them for the phone camera like a stage magician.

“C’mon, don’t magic the mice,” Dean sighs.

Sam catches that word again, _infaustis_ , which he knows means unlucky or ill-omened and nothing good, as she mutters something under her breath, then brings the mice together like one of those monkeys-with-cymbals toys that Sam finds nearly as terrifying as clowns.

“Ta da!” Before their eyes, both mice turn to blackened husks, then disintegrate into a pile of black ash on the stainless-steel table.

Sam and Dean both wince.

“What if we’re wearing gloves?” Sam carefully doesn’t look at this brother.

“Why don’t you test that hypothesis, Samuel?” She winks. “Just promise to let me watch.”

“You realize how much you look and sound like a mad scientist right now, right?” Dean says.

“It wasn’t so very long ago that we witches were the scientists,” Rowena says airily.

“So, can you remove it?” Sam asks.

“Likely,” Rowena draws the last word out. “But, I wonder, what’s in that for me?”

It’s Dean’s turn to growl, “Rowena.”

“Fine, boys. I’ll make a few calls, find out how to reverse it. But you’ll owe me. In the meantime, leave enough space between you for Jesus, boys.”

Before either of them can protest, one perfectly manicured fingernail approaches the camera and she’s gone.

Dean looks across the table at him, eyebrows raised. “As far as curses go, the American judge gives this one a two out of ten.”

Sam shrugs. “I mean, three for novelty, though?”

They both reach for the phone. Both pull their hands back. Meet eyes.

“Well. That was close,” Sam says. “I’ll just...” he motions to the phone.

Dean crosses his arms, hands under armpits. “I guess we do need to use a little caution if we want to avoid becoming crispy critters. Yeesh.”

“Yeah,” agrees Sam. “But how often do we touch each other, really?”

Dean’s mouth is a line, his eyes have gone far away, and Sam would give anything if he could take that back. There are some places the two of them don’t go. Not for years.

_A motel bathroom near Little Rock, Arkansas. Sam is fifteen. It’s been building up to this, starting the first time Dean caught Sam catching him jerking off. The first time Sam didn’t back out of the bathroom with his hands thrown up, or even look away. This time he’d licked his lips, and looked Dean dead in the eye until, with two more quick strokes, his brother spilled onto his stomach and down his bruised knuckles. Sam had longed to lick them clean. But, that time, he closed the door between them instead._

And now Sam’s the one doing the thousand-yard stare.

His brother clears his throat. “About that case?”

()()()()()

**_Jamestown, Virginia_ **

“Missing colonial reenactors in the Historic Triangle?” Dean grins when he says those last two words, and Sam can practically hear the air quotes. The Impala’s windows are down and the James River spreads out along their route, flat and calm. “You sure this isn’t about that field trip you missed?”

“Why can’t it be both?” Despite the long drive and sleeping in the car the night before, they’re both in a good mood. Yes, what Sam is now thinking of as the _Infaustus_ curse is still attached to them, but they’ve only had one close call so far when Dean looked him deadass in the eye then rewound “Come Sail Away” for the fourth time and Sam reached to eject the cassette (with every intention of throwing it out the window next). Yeah, he’s been possessed, addicted to demon blood, and locked up in literal Hell, but there’s only so much a man can be expected to take.

The light mood in the car may also have something to do with the cannibalism.

“They ate each other at Jamestown? Sick! I should watch more History Channel.”

“And you know what that means…” Sam prompts.

Dean’s eyes are like Christmas lights. “Ah man. Yeah! Wendigo. Blowtorch!”

Sam smiles fondly out the window. He’d dig up every goddamn wendigo in North America if it made his brother look like that with Lucifer topside and their mom in the wind. He doesn’t dare look at Dean, afraid of what his brother might read so plain on his face. Even a classic American muscle car is far too small for a secret so big.

Of all the things in his life he’s had to suppress, this – this thing he won’t even put into words in his mind - is the oldest and the one he’s the most practiced at ignoring. It’s only now, when he knows he can’t elbow his brother out of the way to get to the shower first or backhand him on the arm when he says something truly inane, that he feels the loss of touch so acutely.

Things haven’t been what you’d call easy lately, but they’ve been as easy as they’ve been for a long time between the two of them. They’re on a case. Their mom is alive and well… somewhere. They’re only under one curse that they’re aware of. And Dean’s giving Aerosmith’s “Dream On” his all right now, which is both a terrible sight and sound to behold.

Sam knows in his bones that it would be the mistake of a lifetime – in a lifetime full of mistakes - to ask for any more than this right here.

This one calls for fed suits. In the bathroom of a gas station horrifyingly called Granny’s Fried Chicken and Gas (“Don’t think too hard about it, Sam”), Dean reaches to straighten Sam’s tie but the static shock bubbles between them just in time. Dean hisses “Shit,” through his teeth. “This is harder than I thought it would be,” he says, hands fisted around the sink.

“Yeah,” is all Sam can think to say, and suddenly he’s fifteen again and wondering if he’s giving everything away, on his face and in his voice and the way his eyes track. Luckily, Dean doesn’t look up, is preoccupied with his cuffs.

Later, it’s strange, not standing shoulder-to-shoulder while Agents Morrison (“I don’t care if your luscious locks make you look more like him, I’m Morrison”) and Manzarek interrogate the park director. They learn that the three reenactors worked in different parts of the park. The missing were all male, but different ages. They’d worked there different lengths of time, from two weeks to ten years. Two of them knew one another, one didn’t. The only discernible pattern so far was that they all disappeared one week apart, and the disappearances took place sometime during their shifts, presumably while churning butter and beating molten iron into nails.

The director leads them back out to the museum, and Sam starts to pull Dean aside, catches himself, and motions him, all flappy hands, behind a display in a not-at-all-suspicious way that half the room probably picked up on.

“It’s weird, right? A wendigo-”

“What?” Dean asks, cupping his ear. Of course, now they’re right under the speaker that is currently pumping a triumphant military march through the entire exhibit.

“I said-“ Sam rubs his forehead. “Jesus Christ, I should just fucking text you.”

They make their way outside, but before they reach the Impala, they hear shouts as sparks from a forge fly into a small crowd.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.” The blacksmith reenactor and attempted-murderer-by-molten-metal is suspiciously young, and Sam and Dean walk past a fleeing family to approach him.

“I’m Brighton. I’m filling in for Mitch since he’s… you know,” the kid says, shrugging, after they flash their badges. He runs a hand through his hair, leaving a smear of grease across his forehead. Dean, lips quirked, catches Sam’s eye, and now they’re going to spend the whole time they question this guy trying not to crack up. “Are you here about the…?” The kid stops himself.

“Missing people…?” Sam prompts.

“Oh. Yeah, them. I don’t know what to tell you, guys. I’m brand new here. Who you should really talk to is George,” Brighton tells them. “He’s been here forever. Nothing goes on around here without him knowing. And geez, make sure you call him Captain Archibald. I’ve never seen that dude break character.”

Turns out Archibald’s off that day, so Sam gets to complete his thought when they’re back in the Impala.

“What I was trying to say before, the thing about wendigos is that they usually take one victim and feed off them for weeks or months. Three victims in three weeks doesn’t make sense.”

“Wendigo pack?” Dean guesses, one hand on the wheel. “How many cannibals were there at Jamestown?”

“Probably… everybody who lived through the Starving Time?”

“The Starving Time,” Dean’s grin is back. “That’s so metal.”

“It’s also early in the year for a wendigo to be storing food,” Sam continues. “But you could be onto something about a pack. We’d better book a room and do some research.”

“Or we could…” Dean pulls the Impala into a gravel lot. “…Do our research here. For auld lang syne, Sammy?”

They’re at a nautical themed roadhouse called Thirst N’ Howl. It’s the kind of place where they plop two layers of yesterday’s newspaper on the table before serving your fresh catch. Sam goes along. He’ll do anything to preserve this mood.

“Just don’t drink too much that you forget and you know…” He makes what he hopes is a passable “disintegrating” motion with his hands.

“I’ve managed to keep my hands off you until now, Sammy.” Sam is thankful that Dean’s ahead of him now and can’t see the expression on his face. But his brother turns to him again before they go in. “Besides, we’re on a case. I’ll be good.”

And he is good, playing darts and only auto-pilot flirting with the waitress rather than putting in any actual effort. All the while Sam becomes more and more convinced they aren’t looking for a wendigo. There are no mines this close to the ocean, and while there are caves, they’re shallow.

“I think this whole cannibalism thing has led us down the wrong path,” he finally says to Dean. Meanwhile the waitress, who’d just brought their next beers, scuttles away from their table. 

“You did that on purpose,” Dean starts to playfully slap his arm, feels the static build, stops himself. “Fuck.”

Their work done, they leave before Dean, a professional, is anywhere near impaired. One their way out Dean’s phone buzzes, and Sam automatically glances at it. Their mom.

“She-?”

Dean shrugs. “Hard to say. You know?”

Sam reaches to put a reassuring hand on Dean’s arm, and it’s too close.

He yelps, takes three steps back. “My bad, my bad.”

Dean looks up from his phone at Sam, and if Sam didn’t know better he’d think he saw longing written in his brother’s eyes.

Who the hell does that? Projecting, that’s what Sam is doing. What Dean needs right now is a hug, from their mother, who is somehow alive. Not this, from his brother, who would rather be dead than add to his problems.

“Should we book two rooms?” Sam asks when they arrive at a no-tell joint that someone has wishfully named the Above Board Motor Inn.

“Nah, that’s wasteful.” Sam gives his brother a look. “Of the money. We stole. You’re not getting all spendy on me now, are you Sammy? Just don’t kick me in your sleep with one of your giraffe-like legs and we’ll be fine.”

“You just don’t brush your teeth in the exact same spot that I’m trying to brush my teeth.”

“I don’t do that.”

“You do.”

“Well you- your face.”

They’re both in their respective beds now, Dean on top of the covers, Sam tucked under. Dean’s taking his sleepy time nips from the flask (as opposed to wake up nips from the flask) and, true to his word, the TV is muted on the History Channel, even though this show appears to be about the aliens that Sam is objectively sure did not build Chichen Itza. They’re in the hot part of the country, and Dean has stripped down to his undershirt. Sam had turned away from him when he did. It’s just easier that way.

“Hey,” his brother says.

“Yeah?”

“That was close, huh? Before?”

Sam rolls over to look at him and thinks for a second about how he’s probably performed that exact same gesture, looking over to behold this exact same sight, thousands of times. How it’s been accompanied by that little tinge of want almost as many. His brother, even in a ratty wife beater with a cat-head shaped whiskey stain over his heart, is spectacular. Has always been spectacular. “Yeah,” Sam says. “Sorry about that.”

Dean’s voice is wry. “Nah, man. I almost did it, too, a couple of times. Just my luck, we live through all we’ve lived through and some hedge witch causes me to disintegrate you.”

“From Rowena’s little demonstration, I think we would technically disintegrate each other. You can’t beat yourself up for this particular hypothetical, Dean.” 

“Hey, that’s one way to go out, right?” Dean is looking at Sam now. He has the flask halfway up to his mouth. His voice is heavy with scotch, or sleep, or both, but he’s wearing his half smile. “Together. At the same time? Nobody could make a deal then.”

Their eyes hold for silent seconds. Sam looks away first.

“Or I just call Rowena again tomorrow and nudge her along,” he says to the ceiling.

He stares at an ice-cream cone shape in the plaster long enough to be sure that Dean’s asleep, but in the night there’s another “Sam?” from the next bed.

He remains quiet. For some unknown reason, he remains quiet.

“Do you remember?” his brother asks, soft into the dark.

_Kettering, Ohio. The backseat of the Impala. By that time Sam was accustomed to losing both his father and brother into the smoky roadhouses where they did their best “investigating,” but this time, to their dad’s annoyance, Dean had chosen to stay behind._

_His brother had told dad through the passenger’s side window, “Think I’ll see what I see from out here.” And it was a flimsy excuse because Dean wanted it to be a flimsy excuse. Sam remembered every instance of that, in those years. Tallied a mark for himself every time Dean chose him._

_It was a pattern, by now. This. He’d asked a guy from one of his high schools once, when he knew they were leaving the next day._

_“Do you and your brother ever-?”_

_“No, man. No! Do you?”_

_“No, man. No.”_

_But there in Kettering, at the back of the lot away from the neon and the streetlights, Sam thinks how that wasn’t the first lie he told a civilian. Not even the most consequential._

_His brother joins him in the back seat, all casual._

_It’s Sam’s move now. They’re both looking straight ahead, at the barroom door. If he looked in the rearview mirror, he could catch Dean’s eye right now. “We probably have plenty of time,” he says, all casual, too._

_Sam sneaks a look. Dean’s pupils are huge, adjusting to the dark. His thumb is on his zipper, and his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in a way that makes Sam want to trap it in his teeth. Not that he’d ever. Not that that’s how they are._

_Sam unzips. As if the sound was a starter pistol, Dean follows quick. Dean’s the oldest, the leader, but ever since the first time outside Little Rock when Sam refused to peel his eyes away, he has always gone first. He doesn’t think too hard about why it has to be like that._

_Sam traps his cock between his stomach and his palm, but what he’s really doing is trying – and failing – not to watch his brother’s hand dip and curl. But then Dean’s copying him again and at that sight Sam’s cock is out of his control now, arrow-straight, pointing up to the headliner and already leaking._

_Now, all side eyes and sly, he’s watching Dean and Dean’s watching him._

_Sam strokes himself long and slow and Dean follows suit. He tries something. Licks the pad of his thumb and rubs it over his head, and then exhales a sharp hiss when his brother does the same._

_It smells like sex in here already, even though neither of them has spilled yet. They’ll have to roll all the windows down, toss some food wrappers around. Thinking like this - he’s trying to prolong it, he knows._

_Because it won’t last long. It never does. This infrequent thing. Girls would probably laugh at them, a couple of minutemen. But then girls didn’t grow up under John Winchester’s ever watchful eyes. Only boys._

_Dean’s left hand is curling against the vinyl seat between them. Sam’s is right next to it, palm down. They’re a finger’s breadth apart. His brother has only been on this earth for twenty-one years and his knuckles are already a web of scars._

_Sam wants that hand- They’re in the parking lot of a roadhouse with their dad getting hammered thirty yards away and he wants his brother to reach through the vast space between them and-_

_“Touch me.”_

_Dean’s hand between them is a fist now, and they’re looking each other dead in the eye again._

_“Sammy I want- I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.” He gasps them like dying words. And even as he says it, he’s coming. This time it’s Sam’s turn to follow._

_They don’t say anything after. Not that they ever have talked about it, not a single word. But this time it’s different. Sam knows he’s asked for too much. Crossed the salt line, kicked the legs out from under whatever had been holding this up. They clean up with the fast food napkin stash. They roll the windows down. Accomplices._

_“I’m going to check on Dad,” Dean says suddenly, and is gone with a thump of the door._

_There’s a letter from Stanford in Sam’s back pocket, and he’s been looking for a sign._

“Do you remember?”

Yeah, on those nights, with his face turned guiltily to the pillow in his room at the bunker. In motel showers, in the middle of nowhere in a stolen car, in the woods with one hand clawing at the bark of a tree, or his zipper skinned down and back tensed up against the motel room door with one ear listening for the sound of Dean’s boot soles. He remembers. He’s remembered for years. It shouldn’t do this to him, that “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

But it does. It does. It does.

But still he remains quiet, equally under the weight of the thin comforter and the conversation they’ll never have. Soon his brother’s breath evens out into sleep, while Sam- well, he doesn’t sleep at all.

()()()()()

You can’t miss George Archibald. According to the park director, he’s worked there longer than anyone can remember, always reenacting the same character - his ancestor, who also happens to be named Captain George Archibald.

When they approach him, he’s decked out in full period regalia leading a tour. As they get closer, they hear mention of “The Starving Time” and Dean gets that gleeful look on his face that has Sam looking to the sky to hide his smile.

“…Alas I watched nearly 200 people perish, leaving our population depleted and our hopes scarce. As the long winter wore on, we had to resort to harsh measures. Over here…” He points expansively, and the silk military sash threaded with silver that he wears as part of his costume catches the sunlight and blazes. “For the crime of raiding our meager stores, we had to tie two men to posts and leave them exposed to the elements until they fell down dead.”

A father covers his young son’s ears and glares daggers at Archibald, who carries on with a detailed description of the thieves’ cold-blackened hands and feet.

“Hardcore,” Dean mouths to Sam.

Running on no sleep and a Big Gulp cup filled with coffee, Sam blanks out for a few minutes. When he focuses again, Archibald is arguing with an old white man in a red hat. “…I still maintain that if we’d only planted olive trees like I advised, then the men would have stood a chance.”

That Brighton kid was right. No matter what questions they asked him, Archibald played his character to the hilt.

Agents Morrison and Manzarek approach the reenactor after the tour disperses.

“Federal Bureau of Investigation? I only answer to the authority of His Majesty King James and the Virginia Company.”

“That’s…” Dean blinks. “Bravo. But seriously, we need to ask you about Mitch Highfield, Sonny Parker and Henry Kwan.”

“I know not these gentlemen of which you speak. And I, sir, know every man – gentle or no – in this colony.”

Sam and Dean share a look.

“Yeah, I’m going to need you to drop the act now,” Dean tries again.

Then they both spring back as Archibald draws a very real looking sword from its scabbard. 

“Whoa, whoa,” Sam holds his hands in front of him.

Archibald brandishes the sword in their direction. “Do you challenge me, sir?”

Sam sneaks a peek at Dean. There’s that gleeful expression again. There is no doubt in Sam’s mind that if Dean had his own sword right now, all bets would be off.

Sam tries again. “No need for that. We do not um… challenge you.”

“Then leave me be,” Archibald sheaths his sword in its scabbard. “I must continue my search for William. I can’t seem to find him, and I’m starting to fear for his welfare.”

“Wait,” Sam shares another look with his brother. “William is someone who works here?”

Archibald, who is already stalking away toward the ruins of the stockade, glares at them over his shoulder. “Boy, at Jamestown everyone works or everyone starves.”

“A+ interrogation, Sammy,” Dean says as they watch Archibald look around the stockade, stop and call for someone, then continue his search of the ruins. “Some of your best work.”

“I didn’t sleep,” he admits, rubbing at his eyes with his palms. Then wants to bite his tongue.

“Oh,” his brother says. He doesn't say, “Then why didn’t you answer me when I asked you that question?” and Sam is thankful.

“Heard anything from Rowena?” his brother says oh-so-casually as they walk back to the car.

“She’s not answering my texts,” Sam admits.

“What is it with older women not answering our texts?” his brother muses. “Time was I couldn’t get older women to stop blowing me… up.”

“Ha.”

Oh, this Sam knows. There isn’t much about Dean’s “love” life that he hasn’t noted over the years. Suddenly the sun is too bright, the swamp smell too strong, and all their leads too dead. Sam slaps at a mosquito crawling over the back of his hand.

“Hey Dean, maybe this was just about the field trip. I’m not sure if there’s anything for us here. If it’s not a wendigo, well… people hurt each other. People run off.”

He can tell by the flicker of hurt that crosses Dean’s face that he’s struck a nerve. Curses himself for that, and for the way he’s grown too accustomed to a decent night’s sleep in a consistent bed. He’s not on his game. On top of that, something about Archibald’s committed cosplay is bothering him, even though he can’t put his finger on exactly what it is.

Before he can find out if his brother agrees, they’re stopped by a crowd. In its center is a news reporter and her camera man, standing by a van topped with one of those giant antennae that makes it look like they’re trying to blast messages to Jupiter.

“…Unearthed three weeks ago, the artifacts in the graves include a sealed silver box, a sword hilt and a silk captain’s sash. Archaeologists now claim the find is one of the most significant discoveries in this area in the past fifty years. Stay tuned for more in our 6pm newscast.”

Dean, who seems to have internalized the whole no-touching protocol by now, waves his hand toward Sam’s face to get his attention. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Pinky?”

“Three weeks ago,” Sam echoes the newscaster, who has already ducked back into the van. “Same time as the first missing person.”

“Eggheads dug up a cursed object?” Dean speculates.

Sam shrugs. “Good a guess as any.”

“So we destroy ‘em.”

“Dean! First, these things are going to be heavily guarded. Second, we can’t just destroy objects with this kind of historical value without being sure.”

“Hey, judging by the pattern we have two days before someone else goes missing.”

“Talk you out of it?” Sam guesses.

“That’s right.” Dean flicks his Zippo in Sam’s general direction. “Talk me out of it.”

It’s going to be a long night.

()()()()()

Rowena would finally call when Sam is in the process of preserving priceless historical treasures from one of the United States’ most prolific firebugs. He puts her on speakerphone.

“Well, boys, I have good news and bad news.”

“We’re listening.” This is Dean.

“The good news is the curse can be removed. The bad news is that this is the _Infausti Amantes_ curse.”

Sam mentally translates the words, frowns.

“And to remove it,” she continues, “You need to reunite two star-crossed lovers.”

“And what the fuck does that mean?” Dean asks for both of them.

“All I could find is that the vengeful witch who wrote this curse was in love with someone who loved someone else. It’s your standard ‘If I can’t have you nobody will’ love curse, but with a creative twist I rather wish I’d thought of.”

“Soooooo… we’re matchmakers now?” Sam is rubbing at his temples so hard now that he’s about to create a groove.

“I’m afraid it’s a bit harder than that, lads. It has to be two people who were already in love, but were kept apart by outside forces, fate, the universe, whatever you want to call it.”

He thinks of his mom, suddenly, and looks at Dean, to see if he’s had the same thought. But, while Rowena speaks, Dean has shaped his hands around an imaginary person’s neck and is making throttling motions.

Sam tests the theory when the phone disconnects. “Mom and dad?”

Dean sighs. “By that logic, you and Jess. We’re not going to start fetching people out of their heavens just because we keep almost killing each other, Sam. Surely, we know somebody with a bad breakup. Still got feelings. Whatever. We find ‘em, lock ‘em in a closet and let nature take its course.” 

Sam isn’t so sure.

After midnight at the motel, Dean randomly throws out names of people they know who may have a star-crossed love somewhere in their past while Sam researches the artifacts. It seems all the news outlets got their information from the same press release and the facts are scant.

He’s reading someone’s graduate school thesis on the first Jamestown colonists when Dean tries, “Garth?”

Sam scoffs. “You want to break up Garth’s family?”

“I just want to be able to touch you again.”

That came out wrong. Sam knows it did. Dean doesn’t realize what he’s said. He never does.

Sam swallows. Even under oath he couldn’t tell anyone a single thing about the paragraph he’s currently reading, but he still carefully finishes it before mustering the nerve to look up from his research. He knows he’ll find Dean reacting to something on the TV, or still thumbing through contacts in his phone. But…

His brother is looking at him.

That’s the moment that a soap bubble somewhere in Sam’s chest pops, and he lets himself start to hope that his brother knew exactly what he said. Their eyes are still locked when Sam shuts the laptop.

“I remember,” he says.

Dean looks nailed to the spot. He flexes his fingers, opens his mouth to speak, closes it again without making a sound. Looks away, shy.

“How could I forget?” Sam continues.

“We were kids,” Dean says to a stain on the wallpaper. “You were definitely a kid.”

“I was old enough.”

"I-" Dean starts, trails off. He wants to drop it now. He’s sorry he started it. Sam can tell.

Maybe it’s too many years, maybe it’s lack of sleep, but Sam is relentless. He moves to his bed now, facing Dean, he and his brother only inches apart. "I started it. You would never have-"

“Sam.” It’s a warning now.

“Not if I didn’t start it.”

“Sam.” It’s even more of a warning now.

“You never touched me,” Sam says.

“Hey, and now I can’t.” Dean says with that bark of a laugh he has that could turn into a growl at any second, and usually does.

He stands up quick, their knees nearly touching. The static flares between them.

"I’m-" He gestures toward the door, not looking at Sam anymore.

“A coward,” Sam supplies in his mind. “A responsible big brother,” he supplies next.

But neither one of them finishes Dean’s sentence. His brother lets the door slam behind him.

()()()()()

Sam needs sleep. He researches instead, and around 3am an alert hits his email. It’s the early morning edition of the local newspaper, featuring an interview with an archaeologist. Results are preliminary, but they’d found four previously unknown graves buried outside the Jamestown stockade. Only two sets of remains so far have been identified. One is assumed to be Captain George Archibald due to the scraps of a silver captain’s sash in the coffin, though some quirk of soil composition has caused the bones to wither away to dust. It’s a great loss to archaeology. The other is thought, due to an heirloom sword buried with the body, to be William Easton.

“Well, damn,” Sam says to himself. This seems… relevant? But for the life of him he can’t connect what that has to do with their three missing men. He glances over at the empty bed. Wishes Dean were here to toss out one of his wild theories. He wakes up a few hours later, still in the chair with his laptop open in front of him, wishing the same thing.

Dean’s barging through the door with coffee and Slim Jims. “Sorry,” he doesn’t meet Sam’s eye. “Granny’s Fried Chicken and Gas is uh- limited on breakfast options. So, what’s the plan?”

That’s how it’s going to be then. Sam fills him in on the archaeological discovery. They decide that questioning George Archibald again is their best option. If the pattern holds, they have one day left.

“Sammy, hear me out here,” Dean breaks the silence as they drive back toward Jamestown. “What if I just happened to also have a sword?”

“Dean. No.”

Sam knows his brother well enough to know that at this moment Dean is silently pondering where he can find a sword to add to their arsenal. Meanwhile Sam is pondering how he let things go so wrong between them. Again. There hasn’t been a single close call with the touching today, Sam thinks. They’re getting good at this already. Yay.

This time they find George Archibald lingering near a barricade that Sam now realizes must conceal the archaeological dig.

“Captain George Archibald, at your service. Pray, sirs, how may I assist?”

“George, I mean, Captain Archibald, when we talked yesterday, you said-” Sam begins.

“Yesterday?” Archibald’s brows furrow in confusion.

“You don’t remember? We’re Agents Manzarek and Morrison with the FBI?”

“FBI? I only answer to the authority of His Majesty King James and the Virginia Company.”

Dean mutters, “Now don’t you wish you’d let me have a sword?”

But something dawns on Sam. He reaches to touch Dean’s arm to alert him, feels the static, sighs internally, and turns back to Archibald. “Captain Archibald, did you ever find William?”

"No I-" there’s that confused expression again. “I haven’t seen William all day. He knows better than to leave the stockade with the Powhatans so stirred up. I must have just missed him?” He wanders a few steps away, along the barricade, then stops short. “I should consult my journal!”

He seems to have forgotten that Sam and Dean are there as he marches determinedly toward a steel door at the back of the museum featuring two deadbolts and a big “Employees Only” sign. They watch him stop at the door, frustrated, and wander back toward them.

“Captain George Archibald, at your service. Pray, sirs, how may I assist?”

“Oh. Wow. Um. We’re all good,” Sam says. They make their way back to the parking lot, never turning their back on Archibald, who has approached the locked door twice more by the time they’re far enough away to avoid being overheard.

Dean is wide-eyed now. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Sam nods. “Revenant.”

()()()()()

The plan they formulate is decent, as far as their plans go. They’ve done a lot more on a lot less. 

Despite the presence of a significant historical find, that night they’re able to disarm the locks and slip into the storage area with little trouble.

“They should have a guard posted,” Sam mutters. “These are important artifacts.”

Dean shoots him a look as he shines his flashlight around the dark space. “Hey, some days a hunter’s best friend is his trusty gun, some days it’s budget cuts.”

Their light falls on skeletal remains laid out on a metal table. A corroded sword hilt rests by the skeleton’s femur, and Sam assumes they’ve tried to recreate the gravesite how they found it. Next to it on another metal table, lies the silver captain’s sash. The two unidentified sets of bones sit on two more identical tables.

“Cool,” Sam mouths.

Dean stands over the finds and flicks his Zippo open.

“Dean.”

“I’m just warming her up. I said I’d give you time to talk me out of it.”

Just in case they get lucky, they search nooks and crannies for the three missing reenactors. But if what they suspect is true and Archibald’s revenant has mistaken the men for William Easton, it’s doubtful they’re all somewhere enjoying freshly churned butter together. Sam thinks of the James River so handily close, and is afraid he knows what became of them.

Sam continues searching until he comes across a book under a glass case. He has to adjust his brain to reading the old-timey handwriting with its swirling flourishes and s’s that look like f’s. At least it’s not Enochian.

He begins to read aloud. “Smithe yet remains on this earth despite his responsibility for the death of two good souls. When next the council meets, I plan to call for him to hang by the neck.”

“Oh wow,” Sam says. “This has to be it. Archibald’s journal. Smithe is John Smith.”

“Like Pocahontas John Smith?”

“Same guy. He and Archibald were mortal enemies. Archibald thought he was reckless and tried to have him executed.”

“Yeah, that tracks with the guy I met,” Dean says.

Sam picks the lock on the case and begins thumbing through the journal.

“Oh.”

“What?” his brother only lasted about two seconds at his side while he read the journal. Sam shines the flashlight at him and sees that Dean’s now wearing a costume hat with a giant curling black feather sticking out of the brim. A fond feeling blocks his throat for a moment.

“Come read this,” he somehow manages to choke out.

Dean, now hatless, stands just out of range of the electric shock feeling and peers at the journal in Sam’s hand. “I can’t read that. What is that? Enochian? You read it to me.”

Sam really doesn’t want to.

Dean waits expectantly.

Sam clears his throat. “This morning we buried William Easton. He numbers the thirty-first soul to perish from starvation in the colony cursed by God. Would that it had been me. Because of the scurrilous accusations, Smithe and his faction decreed William be buried outside the stockade.”

Sam turns the page. “Despite his exhortations to my human instincts, I always maintained my reserve toward William. Would that I hadn’t. Neither I him, nor he me, ever touched in a manner anything other than with the utmost appropriateness. And now, God help me, we never will.”  
The last line in the journal simply reads, “He was all I ever wanted.”

“Oh wow,” Dean says. He reaches for the journal and the static erupts between the two of them again.

Sam lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Dean turns off his flashlight and now they’re standing in the dark, next to each other, under a curse where if they touch they’ll disintegrate. It feels like a bad idea. Until Dean starts speaking.

“You’re right. I wouldn’t have touched you. But I didn’t stop it either. And now I can’t.” I can’t, I can’t, I can’t echoes over sixteen years and a thousand lifetimes. There, his presence a darker shape in the already dark, Sam’s big brother continues, “I can’t touch you or it’ll fucking kill you. And I get what this dude’s talking about when he says it was all he ever wanted. Because, Sammy, you’re all I ever wanted. For years.”

Sam swallows. He’s never wanted to touch someone more in his entire life. All he has to do is… “On that note, I’ve got good news,” he says finally.

Dean lets out a shaky laugh. Sam thinks he might have been crying. Fuck.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Today’s our day. You can go burn those bones now. Don’t forget the sword and that silver sash... We have a couple of star-crossed lovers to reunite.”

Sam doesn’t know if Dean’s “Oh hell yeah, Sammy” is because he gets to burn the priceless artifacts or because it will break the curse and then they can... Maybe it’s both. Sam likes to think it’s both.

Soon enough William Easton’s bones and George Archibald’s captain’s sash are a conflagration and about nine fire alarms are sounding. They’re laughing as they race for the door, Dean throws a stiff arm across Sam’s chest so he can be the first to burst outside, and it takes until they’re inside the Impala and racing down the causeway, with a fire truck flying by in the other direction, before either of them realizes that they’ve touched each other without turning into disintegrated husks.

“Hey,” Sam says. After all these years, it’s still important that he start it.

Dean pulls the car to the shoulder. He’s staring straight ahead. They both are.

“Touch me,” Sam says.

And Dean does.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are ever so appreciated. Btw, I'm new to this school, so hit me up on Tumblr at [Crooked-Sleep](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/crooked-sleep)!


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